Barnabas File

In a recent study conducted by the International Coach Federation on “ Building a Coaching Culture with Millennial Leaders,” Alejandro Campos, 
   Head of Talent Management and Organizational Development at Continental Tire Worldwide, is cited in this quote: “Coaching is one of the instruments that we see can really boost performance and also help realize potential for people. We see it as something that is important to leverage our culture. So especially now that we are trying to be a more progressive and attractive employer, we’re trying to move from a culture of more top-down approach to a more collaborative approach in the more engaging leadership style.” There is a crisis in ministerial leadership.  In many denominations, there are fewer seasoned ministers available and many younger clergy are disenchanted about working in the local church.  One way to address this concern is to incorporate basic tenets of coaching into the life of the church...

I have just returned from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly.   As usual, I had the opportunity to meet and greet many friends and colleagues.   My reflections on the meeting will wait until tomorrow, but as I drove home and thought about who I had seen there, I also thought about those who were not there. During the 1980s and 1990s, the progressive Baptist movement in the south lost many who had identified with the Southern Baptist Convention to other denominations.  Women ministers moved to denominations such as United Methodists to become pastors.  Some changed to denominations such as the United Church of Christ due to its clear stance on issues of social justice. Others became Episcopalians because of their love of the liturgy. The exodus continues today, however.  An American Baptist friend on the west coast told me recently that several young ministers who had been nurtured in CBF churches and seminaries had ac...

When I was in seminary, I heard the story of the pastor who did not earn enough to maintain a reliable automobile.  According to the story teller, the pastor when to the chair of deacons and said, “It looks like I will have to start hitchhiking to the hospital to visit church members.  I wonder what people in the community will think about the pastor of the Baptist church standing by the road with his thumb out?”  I don’t know if this story is true or not, but it does illustrate the drastic steps that ministers sometimes have to adopt to get the kind of financial support they need not only for the basics of life but to do ministry as well. Pastors don’t like to bring up finances and lay people generally don’t want to hear about them.  Churches are reluctant, perhaps afraid, to consider how much it costs to support a full-time minister.  They may realize that they can no longer marshall the resources to sustain a pastor. Often churches adopt stra...

If you had a choice between helping your current pastor stay on and continue to grow in her or his capabilities as a leader or for your church to go through a lengthy search process, which would you choose?  I think most of us would choose the former.  The departure of a pastor usually entails a period of grief, seeking an interim, going through some congregational self-assessment, putting together a search committee, vetting candidates, selecting a person and then getting that person on the field.  It is a trying process and an expensive one.  I have never seen a church grow during an interim period. One way to keep your pastor and help him or her become more effective is to employ a professional coach to work with your leader.  This is an investment that will benefit both the pastor and the congregation.  Coaches can help a pastor in a number of ways. First, the coach can be a safe sounding board as the pastor exercises leadership ...